TGIO: Thank God It's Over

Since I have to fill up a whole ten-page paper about this play (which turned out a lot shorter than I originally planned), this blog will be purely subjective.  First off, I just want to say thanks to you, Dr. Gleason, for helping us with our performances, and squeezing extra practice time into our schedule (we really needed it).  As for our play, well, some things turned out like I had envisioned them, some things did not.  A lot of the problems came solely from technical errors that we didn’t plan on.  One of the biggest ones being a dark backstage and four plays worth of props stacked in one giant pile.  Another problem being the curtains, which I did not know how to operate.  But I’m not going to dwell on the negative.  I’m not a theatre techie so I can hardly be expected to know my way around the stage. 

I had a lot of fun watching the other plays and seeing those little snippets of rehearsal come to life as a full blow production.  I was actually a lot less nervous about our performance once I got onstage, mostly because I was too busy trying to figure out the curtain pulley system and find Titus’ apron to worry about being nervous. 

All in all, it was definitely an experience.  Stressful, yes.  Hectic, yes.  Frustrating, yes.  But hey, that’s Broadway.  And it certainly made me see Shakespeare in a whole new light.

A Thinking Man's (or Woman's) Play

I have to admit that I’m really excited that we’re working with Macbeth because it’s probably my favorite of Shakespeare’s tragedies (witches, prophesies, murders, ghosts, Scottish people!—what’s not to like? (Although I have to admit that Titus Andronicus is really close behind because the more I work with that text, the more I appreciate the sheer craziness of it—it’s so much fun.)).  What I really like about Macbeth, though, is how much it makes you think.  There’s so much to debate about.  We touched on one of those debates regarding the witches and Macbeth.  Would Macbeth have tried to claim Duncan’s throne if the witches hadn’t told him the prophecy?  Was Macbeth in control of his actions or was he ruled by fate?  My Intro to Lit class recently read this play and even after going over these kind of questions half a dozen times, I still don’t have a clear answer.  It all depends on how you look at the situation, what kind of “lens” you view it through.  Like we said in class, if you look at the situation through a Protestant viewpoint, we would claim Macbeth didn’t have control over his actions—he was a pawn of destiny.  But if you look at it through a Catholic viewpoint you could argue that everyone has freewill and Macbeth made his own choices.

Another debate that we addressed in my Intro to Lit class was whether it was Macbeth or Lady Macbeth that was responsible for the death of Duncan.  Yes, they’re both responsible, but if you had to pin it one person, who would it be?  The debate was really interesting because a lot of people initially chose to blame Lady Macbeth because she was manipulative.  I played the devil’s advocate (as we like to say a lot) and said Macbeth was the one responsible.  If you look at it through the argument of a modern court, Macbeth was truly the one who committed the act.  Lady Macbeth was just an accessory to the murder.  We also said that although Lady Macbeth manipulated Macbeth into the act, Macbeth could have easily said no.  During that time period, the husband was in control.  If Macbeth wanted to, he could have put Lady Macbeth in her place and told her to stop talking about the prophesy, etc.  But he didn’t do that.  He never even defends himself.  He lets her force him into action; it’s as if Macbeth has already decided he wants to kill Duncan, but he needs someone to motivate him.

There are so many debatable instances in this play, and many times it’s really hard to choose a solid answer, to figure out the right and the wrong.  The more I read Macbeth the more I find arguments for both sides.  Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet may be popular, and King Lear may be Shakespeare’s greatest play, but Macbeth is a well-wrought morality tale that makes you question every scene and character.   

More Past, Less Tragedy

Tragedy is the core of this class, quite obviously because we are studying Shakespeare’s tragic plays.  But for the first time in class we actually sat down and tried to sort out the true tragedy in the play we were reading, and the causes and moral implications that could be determined from it. 

What I found interesting was that King Lear was a much more tragic work than Ran, at least in my opinion.  One of the influencing factors was that we got insight into Hidetora’s past, while Lear’s was left up to speculation.  Truly, in my mind, it’s Hidetora’s past that makes him less worthy of my pity.  Let’s break it down: he’s a crazy monarch who mutilated and murdered the families of two different young women, then proceeded to make those two women brides for his sons.  And that’s only the stuff we know about; the audience is perfectly capable of making assumptions about what the rest of his reign was like.  So what do we know about Lear?  He’s an old guy, possibly getting a little loopy in his old age.  He’s prideful, yes, and a little naïve among other things.  But is he a ruthless murdering warlord?  So really, I find it much easier to pity Lear.  His story is more tragic because of this, while on other hand I feel Hidetora got what he deserved.

So Hidetora’s past didn’t really define the tragedy of the movie, or even give a cause for it, but it certainly had an effect on how tragic his story was.  Was that what Kurosawa was after?  If Hidetora had a different history, the story certainly would have been perceived differently.  Perhaps that was Shakespeare’s idea all along.  Maybe he wanted people to question whether Lear was tragic or not.  Or maybe he wanted the opposite effect.  With no positive or negative past to give shape to Lear’s character, the audience is forced to make assumptions about him based solely on what little insight we get.